N Street Follies - Greater Greater Washington

Follies rejected

Wed, 09 Jun 2010 09:33:00 EDT

The BZA rejected the special exception application for the N Street Follies hotel. I hope this is a temporary denial while they address the historic issues; there should be a hotel here, just a slightly modified one. (Housing Complex)

Comment

What should historic preservation really protect?

Fri, 28 May 2010 10:47:00 EDT

by David Alpert

Yesterday, the DC Historic Preservation Review Board declined to approve the N Street Follies hotel, proposed for the six boarded-up townhouses on N Street between 17th and 18th Streets, NW. Numerous Dupont residents, including myself, testified against a specific element of the project: its impact on the adjacent Tabard Inn.

N Street Follies proposed massing. Image from the Tabard Inn.

The Historic Preservation Office recommended approval because the plan does a nice job of preserving the fronts and rears of the existing townhouses, placing most of the development along the alley in the rear with an interior courtyard between it and the townhouses. However, that arrangement also will drastically block out light from the Tabard.

Having one's light preserved isn't an absolute right. My own backyard is fairly shadowed by an adjacent apartment building. But in this case, the zoning rules for the SP-1 zone and the Dupont Circle Overlay specifically do protect light and air. Plus, there's an odd zoning anomaly at work: the property owner could build residential as of right, but would have a limitation on lot occupancy; to build a hotel, however, requires a special exception, yet that special exception automatically gives an exemption from lot occupancy.

But more importantly, in my opinion, the Tabard is a particularly valuable and historic resource that is worthy of greater consideration. HPRB often navigates difficult decisions about whether to pare down development to protect elements of a historic area. With so many historic areas and so many elements one could call "historic," how do people who genuinely support preservation but also support development find an appropriate line between allowing everything and allowing nothing?

I believe finding that line means identifying what is particularly historic and cherished by residents enough to place above the value of growing our city. Just because a wall is old or an alley has always had few structures doesn't make it involate, but an overall architectural style or specific places in a neighborhood can be. Of course, people can disagree about which elements are the valuable ones or which are prized enough to trump development.

In this case, however, almost everyone agrees about the historic value of the Tabard Inn, which ANC Commissioner Mike Silverstein called a "neighborhood treasure," a phrase I echoed in my own testimony, below and slightly edited for clarity:

Mr. Chairman and members of the Board,

My name is David Alpert. I live in and own a historic townhouse a few blocks north of this property, in the Dupont Circle Historic District. I greatly cherish the historic value of many elements of the Dupont Circle neighborhood, along with our other historic neighborhoods, and participate as a member of the Dupont Circle Conservancy.

I also edit the Web site Greater Greater Washington, which discusses issues of urbanism, transportation, development, urban planning, and historic preservation in the Washington, DC area. If you read Greater Greater Washington, you will know that I often counsel restraint in using the tools of historic preservation to restrict development, especially in alleys.

I believe that our city should and must grow and accommodate new residents, stores, offices and hotels. I'm not averse to tall buildings, even in Dupont Circle, and in fact live just behind a 10-story apartment building.

When thinking about when and how to wield the tool of limiting a project's size, we should think about the purpose behind HP. Everyone may have a different definition, but I believe HP's role is to identify and preserve those elements of a neighborhood or structure that are special and cherished by neighbors and the city as a while. And I believe that the Tabard is one of the most precious of those historic elements.

Walking into the Tabard's lobby, one is virtually transported back in time to an era when DC had many charming, old inns. Now, the Tabard is one of the few that remain, and its presence is indeed a neighborhood treasure.

Since it serves the public, it provides this historic experience not just for residents or a select few but anyone who wishes to utilize its services. My family chose to rent out space in the Tabard for the rehearsal diner for my wedding because we wanted to give guests that historic experience and expose them to a part of Washington's history much more special to me than the monuments and museums. (I did not yet know Jeremiah Cohen, the Tabard's owner, at the time.)

If historic preservation is to protect this district, it must protect most of all those most significant treasures. I welcome a hotel on this site and urge you to allow some development of this property. However, I also urge you to require that the building step back from the Tabard's garden to a sufficient extent to protect the sunlight that currently illuminates the parachute.

The rear addition could simply comprise one story at its eastern end, ramping up to its proposed height at its western end. That would necessitate moving the bridge fro the old to the new, or including two elevators instead of one, but such a restriction would leave ample building envelope for an addition that still preserves the rears of the historic townhouses.

This Board has worked hard in recent years to strike a balance between allowing growth and preserving what is valuable and historic. In this case, striking that balance must include protecting the Tabard's garden and the light that reaches it. Thank you.

33 comments

Historic committee favors addition atop historic rowhouse (Jul 21, 2010)
"Follies" hotel proposed for N Street (Oct 1, 2009)
Is a Barney Circle historic district a good idea? (Jul 7, 2010)
They're not historic, but shouldn't be a parking lot (Jun 1, 2009)
Preservation "incompatible" with historic preservation (Jan 11, 2008)

N Street eclipse

Thu, 27 May 2010 09:15:00 EDT

by David Alpert

The Historic Preservation Review Board today will review the proposed "N Street Follies" hotel, which could plunge the adjacent Tabard Inn into darkness. (Post) ... I'm testifying for shaving off some of the rear addition that will cast the shadow.

Comment

What's Current

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:01:00 EDT

by David Alpert

The difficult-to-read-online Current newspaper has a number of relevant articles this week, several referencing Greater Greater Washington.

On Page 1: After Kwame Brown scored political points with River East by suggesting a Circulator there, DDOT is studying the broader potential for Circulator expansion but "pausing" actual growth. Maybe turning the 30s into a Circulator would satisfy both Mary Cheh and Kwame Brown and make DDOT prioritize H and I Street bus transit?

Also on page 1, MWCOG isn't about to study tearing down the Whitehurst as the Foggy Bottom Association reported, though Carol Buckley quotes me saying it's not a bad idea to discuss what we'll do in 10 years when the road needs major maintenance. This was just on COG's list of projects, from which ideas (good or bad) never actually get deleted.

The above-the-fold story covers the proposed "N Street Follies" hotel. Architect of the Capitol representative Michael Turnbull seemed to express his agreement with some of the points I made, that the hotel should have less parking (since the N Street dead-end alley couldn't possibly accommodate parking traffic), and that the shadows cast on the Tabard are specifically disallowed by zoning.

Page 3 discusses the great streetcar wire debate. Dupont Circle Conservancy President Rauzia Ally talks about the organization's decision not to sign onto the anti-wire resolution, instead choosing to ask questions about power systems but being open to the hybrid approach if wireless is more expensive. Buckley quotes me again in the page 7 continuation where I actually praise the Committee of 100's efforts, insofar as they seek to get information to the public about the various options.

Comment

"Follies" hotel proposed for N Street

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:43:00 EDT

by David Alpert

A long-running saga over a proposed hotel on N Street, NW has once again boiled over, as developer Morton Bender will go to the Board of Zoning Adjustment for a ruling on the latest version of plans. Dupont Circle neighbors and some surrounding businesses have been fighting elements of this proposal for years. In this case, the zoning laws seem to clearly come down against the plan as currently designed.

Bender owns six townhouses on the north side of N between 17th and 18th, through a company entitled N Street Follies, LLC. That block is the point where large downtown office development meets the historic row house neighborhood east of Dupont Circle. There's a new, large glass office building on the 18th Street corner and a few other modern structures like the Topaz Hotel, but most of the original buildings are intact, and house a combination of residential, office, and hotel uses. The Tabard Inn, which encompasses three townhouses, is next door.

Front elevation (existing). Click to enlarge.

Three of the buildings have five floors while the other three have four. The architect plans to keep the original buildings, which historic regulations require, but to construct a fifth floor addition on the shorter buildings, along with a mechanical penthouse, set back enough as to be invisible from the street. There's also a gap today between two of the buildings, which they propose filling in with a glass wall to create an enclosed entrance foyer.

Front elevation (proposed). Click to enlarge.

The rear of the buildings look like most other old townhouses, with projecting bays and a rear yard area used currently for parking. To preserve most of these rear facades, the architects have designed an interior courtyard immediately behind the historic buildings. Then, a new 5-story addition between the courtyard and the alley will house additional rooms, built out to the property line in the rear and on both sides.

Below the new addition would be a 98-space mechanical parking garage, using automated lifts. The development team say that all visitors will arrive on N Street, where valets would drive cars around to the rear and into the mechanical garage.

3rd floor existing (left) and 4th floor proposed (right). Click on an image to enlarge. Also see the 1st floor proposed (not shown). Note: I used different floors only because these were the only drawings I could obtain; the developer refused to provide better diagrams.

This is a clever design that maximizes the visibility of the historic buildings in the front and rear while also fitting many hotel rooms into the space. However, it would also severely impact the adjacent Tabard Inn and other property owners. None of the other buildings on the block extend out to the property line. Zoning doesn't permit it.

However, there's an odd loophole in the rules. In an SP-1 zone, which includes this area, hotels are not permitted by right but require a special exception. If a hotel receives a special exception, it also is allowed to build all the way to the property line, instead of having a rear setback. Therefore, they are allowed to propose a hotel that takes up much more of the property than the owner would otherwise be allowed to use.

The added footprint has real consequences. Next door, the Tabard has terraces in the rear which are part of their restaurant. According to the sun studies in the applicant's submission, the addition would place the Tabard terrace in shadow during most of the afternoon. And at the ANC 2B meeting where they presented the plan, the architect didn't do his client any favors by only showing diagrams of the sun at 11 am, noon, and 1 pm, in what seemed to be a meager attempt to pull the wool over the eyes of the audience and the ANC.

Footprints of buildings on the block. Pink=structures, green=unbuilt space (not necessarily planted with greenery), purple=proposed hotel. Image from the Tabard Inn. Click to enlarge.

There's no absolute right to have sunlight. We live in a city, and having other buildings nearby is part of that. However, there is an explicit right according to the zoning rules in this case. The property is part of the Dupont Circle Overlay, whose purposes, according to the Zoning Regulations, include to "preserve areas planned as open gardens and backyards and protect the light, air, and privacy that they provide." For hotels in the SP zone which includes N Street, regardless of overlay, the regulations require that:

The height, bulk, and design of the hotel or inn shall be in harmony with existing uses and structures on neighboring property; ... The Board may require special treatment in the way of design, building setbacks, screening, landscaping, sign controls, and other features as it deems necessary to protect neighboring property.

It seems pretty clear, in this case, that if the BZA wants to grant a special exception to allow a hotel, it must ensure that the exception doesn't unduly impact the Tabard or other properties. And it clearly would. The Office of Planning's report recommends approval, saying that the building is "set back along the northeast corner, allowing additional light and air to the existing use to the east." Unless they've changed the plans since it was presented to the ANC, Dupont Conservancy, and when I reviewed the submissions at the Office of Zoning last week, that's not true. There is an angle in the northeast corner, but that's not a setback, just the irregular shape of the property and alley because of Massachusetts Avenue on the north side of the square. I believe OP made a mistake in recommending approval in this case.

98 spaces is also far too much parking, equal to one space per room. By comparison, the Tabard has 40 rooms and only three parking spaces. The Topaz hotel next door (which has a curb cut on N Street) has 25 spaces for 99 rooms and, Tabard officials said, they have enough space for the cars of Tabard guests who drive.

The very small alley only opens onto 17th Street, which is one way southbound while N is one-way eastbound. Driving from N to the alley would require looping around the Peruvian Embassy; coming back to N Street from the alley would require going all the way around to Rhode Island and Connecticut Avenues. In fact, according to Tabard officials who spoke at last month's ANC 2B meeting, earlier proposals for this hotel included traffic studies arguing that a curb cut was necessary because of the deficiencies of the alley. DDOT opposes the application because of these problems.

In general, denser development that doesn't create unsustainable vehicular traffic is reasonable. Having a 98-room hotel with minimal parking would be fine for this square. Some surrounding neighbors have also objected because of the fear of construction impacts. While it's important for the developer to ensure that construction doesn't damage buildings, it's not reasonable to forbid construction, especially near downtown, just because it'll make some noise in the interim.

The Bender properties don't extend as far back as the Tabard, and it would be totally reasonable for them to add to the existing footprint. It's not even unreasonable to occupy the entire block, as long as there are appropriate setbacks on the upper floors. But to allow one property owner to build a solid, 5-story ring all the way around the property that disrupts adjacent uses fairly clearly violates the spirit and letter of the zoning regulations.

21 comments

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